As the clock crept past midnight, I told myself, “just one more page.”
This is a can’t-put-it-down thriller and I was captive from page one.
The main character is Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist who teams up with Sophie, a lovely French cryptologist to unravel the murder of the Louvre’s chief curator. His corpse is discovered at the base of the Mona Lisa painting,placed in a provocative symbolic position.
Mind-bending codes are found at the murder scene which when deciphered, form a sort of map to the Holy Grail.
Langdon, while trying to solve this riddle, realizes that it leads to clues that are all hidden in the art works of Da Vinci.
These clues were well disguised by the artist, but are plainly visible for us to see (after being pointed out).
I recommend going on line to check out Da Vinci’s paintings to see if the clues are really apparent.
Robert and Sophie learn that the murdered curator had been involved in the Priory of Sion, which is an actual secret organization. Some of its members included Victor Hugo, Botticelli, and of course Da Vinci, along with other well known names.
The action takes us on a breath- holding race to Paris and London. Unless they can figure out the puzzle in time the Priory’s old secret and an historical fact will be gone for all time.
Devout Catholics will probably find this book upsetting for it does not portray the church sympathetically. The only fault I could find with the book was that the many flashbacks describing geographical places in overwhelming detail much like a book for tourists.
It is interesting to note that the story is very similar to “Daughter of God” by Lewis Perdue, written in 2000 and is now being contested as a copy of that work.
Carolyn Lewis works part-time in The Pilot’s Carthage office.
